Review Summary

“I come with the wind, and I go with the wind” is a line that few dramatic actors could pull off without wincing, but it’s a piece of cake for Robert De Niro, whose hammier characters — in films like “Angel Heart” and “Analyze This” — have afforded him plenty of practice. Even so, it is the great good fortune of “Red Lights” that Mr. De Niro’s meteorological forecast appears closer to the end of the film than the beginning. As Simon Silver, a blind psychic with Uri Geller-style spoon-bending abilities, Mr. De Niro is both the film’s red herring and its sinister centerpiece, a pulpy excuse for the plot’s supernatural excesses. Before Silver hijacks the plot, Rodrigo Cortés’s smart, talky screenplay and tense direction hold our attention, as much for the unpredictability of the story as the ease with which Sigourney Weaver and Cillian Murphy slide into their roles. Playing a pair of skeptical scientists who investigate paranormal events, smugly debunking as they go, this ghostbusting team seems more than ready for prime time. — Jeannette Catsoulis